Número de actividades de comercio minorista y densidad comercial

Cannabis indica diffused eastwards with early human migrations from

the southwestern Himalayas. As East Asian Cannabis culture developed, so did a different set of human–Cannabis interactions in South Asia. The early history of South Asian Cannabis is vaguely known, encapsulated in cryptic legends of plant use recorded in extinct languages.

In South Asia, four different Cannabis cultures developed at u n - certain dates. The first cultural divergence happened by perhaps 3000 bce, suggested faintly in linguistic patterns. Simplistically, this division

distinguished Cannabis as either a multi-use plant, or primarily a drug. After 1000 bce, the drug-orientated culture split into three traditions. The four South Asian cultures have distinct histories, although these over- lap with one another, and with Cannabis sativa and East Asian indica.

The earliest South Asian texts – written in Sanskrit, an early Indo- European language – give two different plant names translated as ‘cannabis’. First, ´sa¯n·a named a plant used to make cordage, textiles and food.52_{Second, bhan˙ga¯ named a plant drug, most famously described}

in the sacred Atharva Veda hymn of Hinduism as one of the ‘five king- doms of plants having Soma as their chief’.53_{Understanding these}

words in ancient texts is anything but straightforward,54_{and Cannabis}

histories include many erroneous quotations supposedly from early Sanskrit sources.

Of these terms, ´sa¯n·a was probably the one that initially meant ‘cannabis’. In early texts, ´sa¯n·a is a plant that has identified parts with different uses.55

´Sa¯n·a fibre was used for textiles, ´sa¯n·a seeds were food, and the Maha¯bha¯rata epic (perhaps 400 bce) counsels that people seeking prosperity should avoid eating ´sa¯n·a leaves,56_{a suggestion of}

psycho activity. By the first centuries ce, derived forms of ´sa¯n·a became generic for ‘plant fibre’ in South Asian languages. In contrast, the orig- inal meaning of bhan˙ga¯ was probably something like ‘psychoactive drug plant’. Ancient uses of bhan˙ga¯ mainly suggest a use, not necessarily any specific plant.57

The ´_{sa¯n·a–bhan˙ga¯ distinction probably arose in the southwestern} Himalayas. Neolithic farmers first entered the mid-elevation Hindu Kush 5,000 years ago.58_{These farmers probably spoke Proto-Indo-}

European, the precursor to modern languages from western Europe to Bangladesh. Proto-Indo-European originated in the steppes northwest of the Caspian Sea, and ´sa¯n·a probably originated there to name Cannabis sativa. When Proto-Indo-European speakers moved into the southwestern Himalayas, the people recognized indica and found that it could be used in the same ways as sativa – hempseeds collected for food and stems for fibre. The name ´sa¯n·a was transferred to indica.

These farmers also encountered previously unknown drug plants, including datura, belladonna, henbane and Cannabis indica. The farmers eventually came to value indica uniquely, but initially numerous drug plants were called bhan˙ga¯.59

Around 3000 bce, a pioneering trade network encompassed much of southern Asia, from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia and north into the Caspian Sea basin.60_{Ideas, goods and peoples travelled}

widely. Cannabis went as far west as Egypt. Slim physical evidence – sparse pollen in scattered sites, a few fibres from one tomb – suggests that the plant had a minimal presence in Pharaonic Egypt at 3000 bce.61Ancient Egyptian Cannabis culture did not persist, except pos- sibly as faint echoes in Greek and Arabic medicine.62_{By 2000 bce,}

trading extended north of the Hindu Kush to central Siberia, along the

western front of the Tibetan Plateau.63_{Its weediness enabled Cannabis}

to disperse with trade in this vast commercial network, even if people did not carry it on purpose.

Like many sets of related plants, sativa and indica can interbreed. Farmers at oases in Central Asia likely acquired both indica, from the south, and sativa, from the north, probably producing genetically mixed

Cannabis populations in the Caspian basin. However, research collections

lack genetic samples from this area.64_{Cannabis sativa may have anciently}

entered China, but there is no genetic evidence.65

Around the Hindu Kush, people began to consume heated indica green material orally. Heating is necessary to activate its psychoac tive potential, because very little thc occurs in a pharmacologically active form within plants. We don’t know how Neolithic farmers used

Man making bhang tea, Turkmenistan,

c. 1871, from K. P. Von

Kaufman, Turkestansk

drug Cannabis. Psychoactive use seems to have been uncommon, occult, compartmentalized within societies, or all three, contibuting to the vague meaning of bhan˙ga¯ in early sources.66

Bhan˙ga¯ can be linked to the earliest Indo-Iranian cultures that

arose around the Hindu Kush, and which remain poorly understood.67

The Harappan civilization flourished in the Indus Valley from 2600 to 1900 bce. The ancient civilization northwest of the Hindu Kush – modern Turkmenistan – has received the inelegant name Bactria- Margiana Archaeological Complex (bmac). The bmac civilization existed between about 2300 and 1700 bce. The Hindu Kush was peripheral to both civilizations. By 2000 bce, Harappans had estab- lished a trade outpost north of the mountains, where they interacted with bmac farmers who had arrived earlier from the west. Finally, an Indo-European civilization flourished in the Tarim Basin between 2500 and 500 bce, leaving vast, well-preserved graveyards. The origins of this culture are uncertain, but seemingly somewhere around the Hindu Kush.68

Circumstantial evidence suggests that indica was an ingredient in sacramental beverages in these civilizations, which broadly shared a drinking culture. Harappan sites have yielded hempseeds from 2000 bce, which archaeologists have interpreted as crop introduction from China.69_{More parsimoniously, they indicate adoption of indica from}

the Hindu Kush. Ritualized drinking was important in Harappan cities, al though we do not know what was drunk. Many disposable clay cups have been unearthed, and an important icon is the so-called sacred filter that shows liquid flowing from a sieve into a bowl.70

Harappan ruins have yielded many clay sieves, sometimes within large pots, and similar artefacts come from bmac sites.71_{The sieves and pots}

were apparently for brewing a non-alcoholic beverage.72_Putative

Cannabis remains – perhaps hempseeds, but possibly just millet –

were found in 4,000-year-old bmac pots, alongside putative remains of opium poppy (Papaver somnifera) and Ephedra, whose species con - tain the stimulant ephedrine.73_{The sieve-and-pot set is comparable}

accompanied drug Cannabis buried in the Tarim Basin, where people did not make pottery because suitable clay was not available locally.74

The beverage suggested by these remains was probably the legendary sacrament called soma in Hinduism (centred in India) or haoma in Zoroastrianism (centred in Iran). The soma/haoma beverage was named after a plant, probably Ephedra. Nonetheless, other plants were also ingredients.75_{As we have seen, the Atharva Veda (perhaps 1000 bce) lists}

bhan˙ga¯ as one of five ‘kingdoms of plants’ under chief soma. Tarim Basin

grave goods include Ephedra, drug Cannabis and capers (Capparis spinosa).76

Cannabis entered Tibet probably in religious contexts before Buddhism

arrived about 700 ce. In the Tibetan language, drug Cannabis is called

so-ma-ra-tsa.77_{In the Rig Veda (perhaps 1500 bce), soma-rasa referred}

specifically to the prepared beverage rather than to any plant. Tibet’s pre-Buddhist religion seems related to Zoroastrianism; its origin story tells of a land west of Tibet.78_{The Zoroastrian text D¯enkard (perhaps}

1000 ce), described magical–medicinal drinks mixed from various plants, including Cannabis.79

South Asian ephedras remain confined to dry highlands from Bhutan to Iran, and north into China. Cannabis, however, adapted to the subtropical lowlands of India, where it grew by 1600 bce.80_{It was}

thus available when Hinduism and Buddhism arose in the lowlands around 500 bce.81_{In Old Hindu, drug Cannabis was called bhan˙ga¯, which}

later became the name of a milk-based sacramental beverage distinct from the legendary soma.

The primary division in South Asian Cannabis culture – ´sa¯n·a versus

bhan˙ga¯ – lost significance as drug uses became dominant and as other

plants gained preference as sources of fibre and oilseeds. Eventually, three different cultures of drug Cannabis developed in South Asia. The basal drug culture is bhang; the other two cultures, ganja and charas, represent concentrated drugs.

Bhang developed differently in the Indian subcontinent versus the

Iranian Plateau and areas westward, where drug Cannabis anciently gained no obvious importance. Midwifery was possibly where the plant found greatest use. The Zoroastrian text Zend Avesta (perhaps 700 bce),

written in the ancient Avestan language, listed banghem among four abortifacients, all prohibited.82_{(In modern Morocco, Cannabis is mixed}

with datura, henbane and other plants to induce abortion.83_{) Near}

Jerusalem about 350 bce, drug Cannabis was burnt in the burial of a fourteen-year-old girl who died giving birth.84_{In Old Arabic}

works from the Islamic Golden Age (800s–1200s ce), banj referred generically to any psychoactive plant and was associated in stories with crime, dark magic and poisoning.85

Hanf (hemp), from Friedrich Losch, Kraüterbuch: Unsere Heilpflanzen in Wort und Bild (1905).

In contrast, bhang became prominent in the Indo-Gangetic tradition of northern India, which extended southward along the subcontinent’s coasts. Its use seems to have been relatively common, although written accounts of bhang do not certainly refer to Cannabis until about 1200 ce.

Bhang sometimes meant other plants, and other common names could

mean Cannabis or various unrelated species. Documents before 1500 cedescribe bhang as a recreational drug, as a medicinal plant with num - erous applications and as a sacrament, especially among devotees of Shiva.86_{Bhang was mostly prepared as a beverage, although sometimes}

made into topical medicines or included in incense. Maritime trade carried the plant from western India to the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, arriving in Kenya by 700 ce.87_{In Yemeni Arabic, marijuana is}

bango; in Swahili, bangi.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the bhang culture was significantly trans- formed. The plant came into contact with pipe-smoking. The indepen - dent, pre-Columbian invention of smoking in Africa is unequivocal. The oldest smoking pipes are from Central Africa from 400 ce,88

centuries before indica arrived in East Africa. Before Cannabis, Datura

metel was smoked. Resurgence in pipe use in eastern African sites after

1000 ce tenuously suggests Cannabis diffusion. Cannabis residue has been found in Ethiopian pipe bowls from 1350 ce.89_{Smoking pro-}

foundly changes Cannabis as a drug because its pharmacological effects are felt almost immediately upon inhalation (thc is slowly and ineffi- ciently absorbed through the digestive tract). African smoking-pipe technology allowed precise control of dosage, but pipes did not diffuse beyond the continent until the fifteenth century.

Layered over these iterations of bhang were the two other drug cultures. thc is most abundant in female inflorescences, and specifi- cally in resin from glandular hairs that are densest on the flowers. People learned anciently to concentrate the drug, by collecting either only female flowers or only resin. The standard terms in the Cannabis literature for these forms are ganja (the Hindi term for female flowers) and charas (the Persian name for masses of Cannabis resin). In English,

Plant genetics provides the best evidence of the antiquity of charas and ganja. The two drug-production techniques entailed different approaches to agricultural selection. Ganja farmers selected seeds based on the psychoactive characteristics of individual plants. Charas farmers saved seeds from particular fields based on the phytochem- istry of the entire crop.90_{The ancient application of these selection}

practices produced two genetically distinct varieties of indica,91_{the folk}

species indica and sativa of marijuana aficionados. Hashish cultivars – initially only the indica folk species – were bred to be short, so that people could collect resin by rubbing bodies against plants. In con- trast, ganja and bhang cultivars – the sativa folk species – generally grow tall. Height was unimportant for farmers who harvested plants at ground level, yet for plants tallness enables an individual to surpass its neighbours and catch more sunlight. Importantly, the arrival of hashish production in the Levant by 1200 ce did not bring with it the indica folk species, which remained endemic to the Hindu Kush area into the twentieth century.92_{Instead, farmers in the Levant selected bhang and}

ganja cultivars to make charas.

The histories of ganja and charas are vaguely known before 1500 ce. The Tarim Basin Cannabis from 500 bce consisted of only female flowers,93_{but the next-oldest suggestion of ganja is 1,700 years younger.}

During the 1300s and 1400s ce, books from the eastern and western Ganges Valley listed ‘gañjá’ as a synonym for bhang.94_{Some of these}

works also called the drug Indrasana – Indra’s ´sa¯n·a or, more idiomat - ically, ‘Indra’s food’ – referring to a Hindu deity. Ganja was primarily roasted, then chewed before the introduction of smoking, but both

bhang and ganja were occasionally administered via smoke inhalation

before 1500.95_{The association with Indra suggests tenuously that ganja}

appeared in the Atharva Veda as ‘jañgi·da’, an ‘all-healing’ tree to which ‘the formid able Indra imparted . . . formidableness’.96_{Ganja strains are}

adapted to hot subtropical and tropical growing conditions, as in the Ganges Valley.97_{Ganja voyaged towards Southeast Asia via maritime}

trade, but seemingly after 1500. By that year bhang was probably known as far east as modern Myanmar, where Burmese speakers say bhén.98

In contrast, the original charas strain – the indica folk species – prefers cool, moist conditions, such as are found in the mid-elevation Hindu Kush and neighbouring ranges.99_{Charas probably arose as a by-}

product of harvesting Cannabis for other uses. Cannabis is a sticky, resinous plant, and the most basic technique of hashish production is to collect resin accumulated on the skin. A more developed technique is to dry harvested plants, sift the resinous hairs from the other material and press the sifted dust into lumps of hashish.100_{A Sanskrit grammar from}

about 600 bce uses a term glossed as ‘bhan˙ga¯ dust’, possibly meaning

charas.101_{In the Levant around 100 bce, Galen encountered psycho -}

active sweetmeats similar to hash-based ones known historically, but Galen’s may have been made of bhang or ganja instead.

The charas culture experienced its greatest development from Central Asia to the Levant.102_{Hashish distinctly appeared in Old Arabic}

literature beginning in the 1200s, when the term ·hashı¯sh was used from modern Iran to Egypt.103

·Hashı¯sh initially meant, generically, ‘grass’,

‘weed’ or ‘medicinal herb’, but became an endearing nickname for drug

Cannabis – ‘the herb’ – and, eventually, the name of the preparation now

called hashish. Islamic societies debated the morality of drug Cannabis,

which the Qu’ran does not mention, and efforts to suppress its use began in the thirteenth century.104_{These efforts were unsuccessful.}